European Union efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions across the bloc illustrate the need to accommodate heavy industry, a potential lesson for the international community developing an agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, a US diplomat said Wednesday. ( dpa )
The European Commission on Monday began hammering out the details of how to cut its carbon dioxide emissions to 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 - a goal leaders approved last year. But representatives quickly brought complaints about the impact on their individual economies.
"One of the things that's come out of this is the need to find some ways to accommodate the energy intensive industries," C Boyden Gray, the US ambassador to the EU who has been active on climate change issues, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa at the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference.
Industrial nations, like Germany, might be helped by agreements to reduce emissions within specific industries, he said.
China, which along with the US has been reluctant to sign on for mandatory reductions, could also be wooed by such an approach, Gray said.
The US has insisted that any agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol - which the US has not ratified - before it expired in 2012 also include targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions in developing countries.
In addressing the renewable energy conference on Wednesday, President George W Bush again insisted that all countries must be included in an agreement.
"In order for there to be effective international agreements, it must include - these agreements must include commitments, solid commitments, by every major economy, and no country should get a free ride," Bush said.